


Infection

by PeregrineWilliams



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 14:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeregrineWilliams/pseuds/PeregrineWilliams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're going to purify the world from this virus that brings back the dead, or you're going to die trying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infection

It has been six months today since the end of the world.

One hundred and eighty-two notches in your bat since the power went out, the phone lines went dead, news channels stopped broadcasting, since the internet ceased to exist.

One hundred and eighty-two sunrises and sunsets since the virus spread so widely that 99% of the world had died, then gotten back up anyways to make sure the 1% left could share their fate.

You’re still here though. You’ve survived, and nothing is going to stop you from living, especially not the dead. It is your single-minded determination that has kept you alive thus far. This is your world, and you are going to eradicate every semblance of the virus from it until it is clean once again. Purified. Then others who have survived like you can rebuild. You are going to accomplish your goal, no matter how long it takes. You have eradicated almost five thousand in these six months, and you are still young. The dead cannot reproduce, after all.

You have learned much about eradication. You’ve learned how destroying their skulls is the only way to make them stop moving, how to sleep in high places they can’t climb to, how to cover yourself in their black, rotted blood so they don’t smell you coming, how to move completely and utterly silent, how blunt objects don’t need to be reloaded, how to never hesitate, how not to feel. You learned most of this in the second month, when your wife and son had become infected. You bashed their skulls in like all the rest. If the dead could fear, you know they would fear you. The few living people you’ve met along the way fear you, and you don’t even make yourself out to be a threat to them. Fear is the reason they survived though, just as determination is yours, and you do not carry out your judgement on the clean.

Today you continue your eradication, targeting the Walmart of your twentieth city. You find fifty-seven walking dead therein and surpass your quota of at least twenty re-kills per day. You take a hiking backpack off one of the racks and set to packing as much unspoiled food as possible into it from the Goods section of the massive store. There’s quite a bit there still, which you suppose is due to the number of dead occupying the complex. Not many living would risk coming into a place like this just to pilfer some supplies. You are not like most living.

“Pretty proficient with that thing, aren’t you?”

You look to the voice, not in alarm, since the dead do not speak, but with a mild irritation that a presence has escaped your notice. There is a boy hanging lazily off the shelf above you, eyeing the chunks of brain still dripping off your bat. He is younger than you, though certainly in his upper teens or twenties. A girl sits cross-legged beside him, her clothes tight and hair short as per appropriate apocalyptic fashion, though she seems to have a particular affinity for stripes that she will not opt out of in favor of camouflage. They both smile at you, cheery and interested. No other living you’ve met has looked at you like that.

“What’s your name?” the boy speaks again.

You don’t respond, and instead return to packing away cans of fruit, wondering absentmindedly at how two foolish kids have survived this long hanging out in an infested Walmart.

There’s a soft thud and he lands beside you with a little spring in his step. “The strong silent type, eh? Well Mr. Batter,” you raise an eyebrow at the nickname he so readily gives you, “my name is Zacharie and my stunning ladyfriend here is Sugar.” The girl flips off the shelf and lands with all the grace of a ballerina, then comes to rest an elbow on the boy’s shoulder. “We’ve been watching your work-” he gestures to one of the many bodies “-and are quite impressed. We would therefore like to make a proposition of sorts.”

You finish your packing and stand back up, looking down at him in the way that makes most of the living cower and move quickly out of your way. He continues smiling up at you, however, completely unfazed under his messy black hair, and starts talking again. “Sugar and I happen to be quite skilled in the art of pilfering and such, especially where nourishment and supplies are hard to come by. We could provide for all your needs, leaving you free to bash zombies to your heart’s content without worry of your own upkeep. Additionally, as you seem to be a loner, travelling with more than one person means you can sleep in much more comfortable places since there’ll be someone to keep watch. Let us follow, and I assure you our company will not hinder you.”

You mull it over briefly in your mind, even as you walk past him over to the pharmaceuticals. You would much prefer working alone to being followed by chattering kids, but not having to think ahead for where your next meal would be coming from is an enticing offer. You could increase our daily re-kill quota. Well, you reason, if they fall behind you can leave them for the dead anyways.

“What’s in it for you?” your voice rasps from lack of use.

“So he does talk!” the girl skips over, peering under the brim of your baseball cap. “We get to help you kill zombies and get out of this place! We want them gone as much as you do, we’re just not so good at it ourselves.”

You stuff a few bandages in your pack and give them both a hard look, trying to discern any possible ulterior motive. You find nothing more than the childish desire to go on an adventure. How on earth did they survive.

“Come on then.” You head for the shattered automatic door and out across the desolate parking lot. They high-five excitedly and run to catch up with you a few minutes later after quickly packing their own backpacks.

 

* * *

 

They  _sing._

_Why did they have to sing._

What’s worse, they only do it at  _sensible_  times, like when you’ve just finished purifying an area or when you’re walking down a highway to the next city and can clearly see for miles in every direction so you can’t berate them for being noisy and giving away your position. You suppose it keeps up their morale and passes the time in this dead world. It’s an annoyance, but a mild annoyance, so you leave them to it. The two of them have made good on their promises, finding the most nutritious food and secure sleeping spots for you and you have to admit you’ve come to rely on them in the two months since they decided to accompany you.

Right now they’re dancing around eachother as you walk, singing a romantic duet from The Sound of Music or something Disney. You don’t know, you were never one for musicals even before.

The rusty old elevated roadway you’re currently travelling down creaks in the wind and you hold up a hand. The two of them fall silent immediately and join you to look over the railing. Moans and gurgling growls drift up from the small hoard of dead below, 100 or more, a lot even for you.

You notice the cracks in the pavement too late, as the roadway gives another loud creak and a support beam snaps under your added weight. The section of pavement crumbles around the three of you and you fall more than a story onto the hoard. Luckily the debris kills a few for you, and though you land hard and probably badly bruise your ankle, if not sprain it, you land on your feet all the same and come right out swinging. A canine tooth with attached rotting gums splatter across your cheek with the force of your blow, and you make sure none of it actually gets in your mouth or you could risk infection that way.

Suddenly there’s a very human scream and you turn to see Sugar frantically fighting her way over to the place you assume Zacharie fell. That particular place is currently swarming with the dead.

You limp quickly over to the girl, helping her get through. She fights as elegantly as she dances, dodging blows smoothly and easily, and when she strikes it’s a quick and precise jab to the neck with her knife or a sharp kick to disable by breaking their kneecaps. She tires though, and you see her try to get through them more than kill them. You follow and finish off the ones she leaves.

She reaches him and clears the dead in his immediate vicinity with much more ferociousness. You see a lot of blood that isn’t dark and rotten. Sugar props him up against a slab of the fallen roadway and feels his skin all over to assess the damage while you take care of the remaining dead. The boy holds his face in his hands and gasps of pain wrack his body.

You return to Sugar’s side, raising the bat above your head. She leaps in front of you with a screech and grabs the bloodied end of the bat. “He’s not infected!” she screams desperately at you. “There are just scratches! Not bites! I checked! There was a woman with long nails! I checked! Please…”

“If their blood got in any of his wounds-“

She shakes her head frantically and keeps muttering ‘please’ at you until you lower your bat. She wraps your ankle up tight and you hoist Zacharie up onto your back to carry him to a safer area while she thanks you profusely and raids a nearby drug store. By the evening, Zacharie’s entire face is covered with a salve, riddled with stitches, and wrapped up in two layers of bandages. The three of you hole up in a deluxe tree fort Sugar found in a backyard as it starts to rain, and you lean back and listen to it patter on the tin roof as you watch her inject the boy with another small dose of morphine for the pain. He falls asleep after a while as Sugar watches sadly.

She sits in wrapped in a blanket beside his sleeping back, one of his hands in hers, and offers to take the first watch. She asks about your family before you fall asleep, about your life _before_. You divulge nothing. That part of you is gone, just like your name.

“I exist to purify the world from this virus now. That’s all.”

She nods slowly and rests her head against Zacharie’s shoulder, asking no more.

 

* * *

 

It’s unlikely that Zacharie’s face will ever fully heal, seeing as skin grafts are not exactly possible in these conditions. Any kind of open wound in an infected world is a death sentence however, and so when you come across an old costume shop Sugar insists on going in. You secure the area while she peruses the selection of masks on the back wall. She chooses a practical one, simple, flat, free of unnecessary embellishments that may attract attention or be easily grabbed by assailants.

“He likes frogs,” she says, hugging the mask to her chest as you walk, back to where you had left Zacharie to recover in the treehouse while you collected more of the supplies you had lost or damaged in the fall.

When you return, there’s something else there, in the treehouse. Zacharie is sitting up, awake, though with the fogginess of pain medication still in his eyes. He rhythmically strokes something furry and breathing on his lap. You haven’t come across any animals other than crows for longer than you can remember, since the virus seems to just kill them instead of reanimating them like it does humans. The crows have learned not to eat the dead, though they are among the few whose intelligence has saved them.

When the creature raises its head to look at you critically when you enter, you can see the same intelligence in its wide slitted cat eyes, different from the usual house cat. Surviving this long was no accident for it.

It seems to deem you and Sugar acceptable, because it goes back to rubbing against Zacharie’s hand. You kneel down beside him and give it a once-over just to be sure of its purity, then go back to distributing supplies between the three backpacks in preparation to head out.

Sugar takes the bandages off Zacharie’s face and makes sure all the bleeding has stopped, then rubs on a bit more salve and offers him the frog mask. He seems happy enough with it, even if he can’t move his face much or speak for fear of reopening something. He squeezes Sugar’s hand and she gives him a careful kiss on the less-damaged cheek before he puts it on. He gives a thumbs up to you and you hand them both their packs.

Suddenly the cat’s fur stands on end and it starts to hiss loudly. You try to determine the cause, but Zacharie stands and moves to look out the window at the cat’s urging. He points to the street, and you get up to look. There’s a mass of dead passing by, too many to fight, and you can see a few of them sniffing around like they’ve caught your scent.

You pull on your backpack and climb down from the tree, motioning for the others to follow. You lead them quickly over fences and through backyards instead of pathways and roads, until you’re far enough away to be safe enough to slow your pace. It’s only then that you notice Zacharie’s passenger.

“You’re not bringing that thing along,” you growl. Zacharie holds the cat protectively against his chest.

Sugar gives him a worried look and turns to you. “Come on Mr. Batter Man, it pretty much saved us just now and it’s probably been alone for a long time. Maybe it can help detect zombies for us more!”

“You’ll have carry and find food for it on your own,” you warn, but Zacharie nods his head confidently so you let it go and continue on to your next target city.

 

* * *

 

Things are much more difficult in large cities. Towering office buildings impede your view of potential threats and provide no cover, with their few exits and maze-like structure that can conceal the dead at every turn. The literal only benefit is also the biggest danger: the sheer number of walking corpses. It means you can achieve a quota of over fifty per day, but it makes it so there is no safe place, ever.

The best they find is a rooftop garden area to camp out in. You push a heavy broken radiator in front of the access door just in case, even though you’ve already cleared the building. You also made sure the next building over was close enough that you could jump to the adjacent roof if you needed another way out, but still far enough away that the dead would be unable to crawl over the gap. It’s safe enough, though being exposed to the elements means the possibility of catching a cold or fever if it happens to rain, and even mild sickness is a luxury you can no longer afford.

It doesn’t rain on the first night though, and so you return the next day when you are unable to find anything better. These days all three of you are able to sleep through the nights, since for some reason the cat doesn’t run off when you set it free but instead stands vigil the entire night, scanning the area with its reflective eyes and only making a sound  when the dead come close enough to be a threat. You used to wake up every hour or so to make sure, but it would always be sitting there, ever watching, so eventually you stopped checking.

Zacharie and Sugar have started calling it ‘The Judge,’ both for the way it seems to stand authoritatively over its nighttime realm, and for the way it looks at Zacharie whenever he makes a bad joke.

The third night on the roof garden you wake to the cat pawing at your face and yowling loudy. You get up quickly and try your best to assess the situation in the pitch darkness. It seems an incredibly large mass of the dead is making its way down your street, following the growls of those already at the bottom floor, perhaps drawn by your scent since the three of you have inhabited a particular location for more than one day. The dead cannot scale buildings on their own, but they have no qualms about crawling over eachother en mass and with the amount currently approaching it would be possible for them to reach you.

You rouse Zacharie and Sugar quickly and start pushing the radiator away from the door. Your only chance of survival is to escape now before your block is completely surrounded. Even if they can’t get up to you, you don’t carry enough food to last the three of you more than a week.

When you fling open the door there are already dead on the stairwell, and so you clear a path while the kids collect their packs and cat. It’s all you can do to beat your way through once you reach the ground floor, and you don’t bother looking back to make sure the kids are following. When you finally break through the mass around the base of the building you’ve counted seventy-two caved-in skulls, and you run down the dark street smashing in more as you run from the much larger approaching hoard. Sugar soon joins running by your side, and once you’re through the thick of it Zacharie sprints to try and find any semblance of safety.

What he finds is a library, and though it’s far from ideal, at least it has a partial second level so you can still see what is going on on the ground floor and a mostly rotted staircase which you promptly destroy. You’re sitting against a bookcase catching your breath beside a flashlight Zacharie managed to find batteries for, when Sugar starts to cry.

You notice the cat staring at her warily and give her a hard look which Zacharie promptly shields her from.

“Zacharie…” you stand up, bat at the ready.

“She’s fine! She just… she just scraped her arm a bit when she tripped on the stairs!”

Sugar shakes her head and buries her face in Zacharie’s shoulder, hugging him tight. You can see the torn striped cloth on her arm now, how it’s bleeding from indentations in the shape of a jaw, how the skin around the wound is starting to turn black.

You raise your bat and Zacharie lowers his head in defeat. “Okay, j-just… just give me a few minutes, okay?” he pleads with a crack in his voice.

You stand off a ways as they press their foreheads together and whisper to eachother, watching as the rest of her body starts to show signs of rotting. You return when the cat starts to hiss. Sugar plants a kiss on Zacharie’s mask and whispers “I’m sorry, goodbye,” before she closes her eyes. A moment later they open again, grey and dead, and she sits up to bite through Zacharie’s neck.

You cave in her skull.

Zacharie continues to hold her through the night as tears run down his frog mask. You sleep soundly the next bookshelf over. It’s better this way, after all. He needed to learn the lesson you learned when you first started out. He needed to learn how not to feel.

 

* * *

 

 

When you head out to leave the city a week later the hoard seems to follow you. You haven’t encountered another living for four months now and you’ve wondered if the two of you are the only humans left.

The dead follow you across the country until you tire of running, but they do not relent since now it seems as though you are their only targets. When you enter the next city only more join them. You start turning back to attack their front lines but for every hundred skulls you crush, a hundred more crawl over their re-dead bodies.

The fourteenth time you turn back to attack them, they overwhelm you. It’s only brief, then you are able to battle your way out and catch up to Zacharie, but they have killed you all the same. You know as you look at your blackened leg that you’re finished, and it’s confirmed when the Judge starts to hiss at you and Zacharie shakily takes your bat from the hand you no longer control. You’re infected. You’re impure. You failed.

Truly though, you no longer feel. Maybe it's better this way.

Game over.


End file.
